For a little while last summer I thought about writing out my position on Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling, because it felt a little like he was being blackballed from the NFL for it. But when I thought about that feeling, I didn’t think it was exactly true, and the moment seemed to slip away.
I think it would have stayed like that for the whole country: eventually the new normal for a while might have included one or two players at a sporting event kneeling or sitting, or putting a fist in the air during the anthem. It might have even gotten to where they couldn’t say why they did it.
Then the Divider-in-Chief stuck his tweet in.
You have to laugh. The incredibly tone-deaf, insensitive, money-mad owners of the NFL standing with their players against the big bully. They, at least, understand that all the kneeling and arm-locking this past weekend wasn’t about Black Lives Matter or disrespecting the flag. It was a statement that what really matters in football is putting a winning team on the field. They weren’t about to fire important players, and they would do all they could to maintain team unity. Three weeks into the season, and some teams are playing some pretty ineffective quarterbacks. It would be an ironic outcome if Kaepernick gets a call and a job out of this.
You also have to wonder: why is the President of the United States trying to damage a uniquely American business?
But that’s not what I set out to address.
I want to tease out some of the arguments about the kneeling that I’ve seen on social media. My hope, probably forlorn, is to change even one person’s mind.
One of the arguments I’ve seen is that kneeling is, “Disrespecting the Flag” and sometimes those who served and died. You can line up statements from veterans who are disgusted, someone else can line up some from veterans who say peaceful protest and freedom of speech is exactly what they fought to defend. So opinion on that is as splintered among serving military and veterans as it is in the general population.
So here’s a different point: Kaepernick, who started the movement, and those who followed, have explicitly said they have no intent to disrespect the flag or the military.
So if you believe they are disrespecting, you have to get past the idea that they are doing it without intent. As many have pointed out this week, the flag code specifies “The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.” and “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free.” Are you going to accuse all the first responders, military members, cheerleaders, etc., who held those big flags horizontally on the field of disrespecting the flag? Or are you going to give them a pass -- they intended no disrespect. I accept the intent (I also realize that clothes with red,white, and blue flag-like patterns are not the same as flags, that the flag code applies to the military and is not a law. Personally, I think it would be great if this discussion at least leads to wider understanding of flag etiquette -- with so many reasons in the last decade to fly flags at half-mast, it’s obvious that many have no idea how to do that).
Speaking of the flag, shouldn’t intent matter? Again referring to the flag code, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.” Burning is the most dignified way to destroy a flag. Unless the intent is to protest.
If you deny the one intent while excusing the other, you are illogically embracing what Bob Costas called “bumper-sticker patriotism.” I call bullshit.
Another argument I’ve seen is about the players being “Crybaby Millionaires.” First, it takes an effort to misread the protest that badly. Kaepernick and his early followers were not speaking out for themselves, but on behalf of a community they view as oppressed.
Second, the idea that having a bunch of money means you should not try to improve conditions for others or even yourself is -- gee, it is awful hard to come up with a better word here than “stupid” -- historically un-American. Change the issue: should NFL players accept brain damage and ruined bodies because they make millions of dollars? A yes answer is cruel. Change the millionaires: should Bill and Melinda Gates or the Koch brothers stop trying to change public policy? Should Donald Trump have stuck to developing real estate and being a TV personality and never tried to “Make America Great Again”? I’d like to say yes, but that answer is anti-American. Ben Franklin went from successful printer, to inventor, to public benefactor back at the dawn of our republic. Why should these millionaires be grateful and silent, while other millionaires are vocal and active? More on that later.
So it just doesn’t make sense to call them crybabies or assert that because they are millionaires they shouldn’t try to effect social change. I’ve also seen assertions that they should actually do something instead of taking a knee. Patriots owner Bob Kraft has pointed out how proud he is of the community work players do. Kaepernick continues to donate, even while unemployed. Is it okay for these millionaires to do charitable work, give their money to causes, and try to raise others awareness?
Your answer is “no”?
Maybe you think it’s the wrong time for the protest, that those who take a knee are
“Politicizing the Game.” There isn’t much that’s more political than displaying the flag and having a mass demonstration of allegiance to it. The objection, then, is to “politics that I disagree with.” What’s the popular term for someone who can’t stand to see or hear anything political that they disagree with? Snowflake?
Who is responsible for politicizing the game? The connection between sport and patriotism is long-standing in the U.S., and the recent controversy has inspired many reports and perspectives on it. There is no doubt that connecting the NFL to politics is a decision of the NFL, not of any particular players. Football as it has evolved in the U.S. is an extended analogy to the military and war. The players wear uniforms and are identified by position and number, unapproved displays of individuality are punished, coaches and coordinators are celebrated. More than other professional sports, football celebrates the team over the individual (there are implications here for why owners and coaches supported their players and not the President).
Additionally, association with patriotism is a long-standing logical fallacy used in marketing. The ad populum arguments I hope I dismissed a thousand words ago are about the same thing. Here, I’ll point out that the military has spent much taxpayer money to associate themselves with the NFL and other professional sports as a recruiting tool. Various NFL teams received up to half a million dollars each, totalling $5.4 million between 2011 and 2015. NASCAR, by the way, may have received as much as $100 million --no wonder they won’t allow drivers or crew any individual freedom about the anthem issue. You may unquestioningly believe that the U.S. government and its military always do the right thing, I guess. But, doesn’t it still seem wrong to emotionally manipulate young people into joining the military by associating it with their favorite sports? In a particularly egregious NFL-related example, Pat Tillman’s “legacy was manipulated by the powerful in order to stay in power and to keep feeding young men’s lives to the war machine. To bring Tillman into the national anthem kneeling debate as someone who would have reprimanded his teammates for protesting racial injustice (and not, as cynical commentators would have you think, the military) is to completely misunderstand who he was or what he believed in.” Tillman died in Iraq, participating in a war he did not agree with. The military knowingly lied about Tillman’s death in order to use him to recruit more soldiers. President Trump continued to evoke Tillman in a tweet that inspired Marie Tillman to ask that Pat’s memory not be politicized.
The national anthem evokes many sincere and positive ideals and emotions; I feel a surge of pride and loyalty when I hear it, when I stand, when I sing along. However, the overwrought displays that precede some NFL games include a distinct and undeniable element of cynical manipulation, leading to enlistment and not ending, but recycling, with a flag-draped coffin. When we stand, we are not just standing with the noble warriors who fight for our freedom, we are standing for the deaths of innocents for the sake of money, while those who kneel see injustice and put their livelihoods at risk to make a statement about it for the sake of a better America.
I’m trying to be dispassionate, but under football’s, and America’s, shiny surface there’s a lot of rottenness, and blood.
One argument I’d have expected, but don’t see, is that the racial injustice Kaepernick protests doesn’t exist. Maybe shifting the arguments to the points above allows you to not think about racial injustice that you know exists, but you don’t know what to do about it, or you don’t want to do anything about it. Racial injustice exists in America. Black unemployment is double white unemployment, and always has been. The disparity would be greater if the incarcerated were counted. The difference exists regardless of educational attainment. Blacks experience lower wages and lower real wealth. Black youths are five times more likely than whites to be incarcerated, because they are treated differently at every point of contact with the justice system. The same ratio holds true in the adult population. One recent study gives “three major reasons for the disparity: policies and practices such as harsh sentences for drug-related crimes that disproportionately affect African-Americans; implicit racial biases that affect judges; and structural disadvantages that affect African-Americans before they enter the criminal-justice system.” Kaepernick was motivated by reports of police killing blacks. So far in 2017 police have killed 730 people, 165 of them black. That’s 22%, while the percentage of blacks in the general population is about 13%. There are more reports of racial injustice in the recent past here.
President Trump claimed his “son-of-a-bitch” tweet wasn’t about race, but how can this not be about race? Of course it’s about race. You’d like to believe you aren’t a racist, I bet; but, a study and report indicates that most of us harbor racist stereotypes, and many of the arguments addressed above rest more solidly on racism than they do on logic. A friend commented on Facebook, “Should I just hate myself for being white and middle class?” helping me realize that I think we should, “just say, ‘yes there is racial injustice and it sure would be great if police and the justice system worked to end it.’”
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